Arguing by Way of Assertion.

A few months ago, I was taken aback by a wildly problematic post that was part of Danielle Belton’s “Unconventional Wisdom” series on her popular blog, the Black Snob. The problems in that entry, on integration’s destruction of “black community” and HBCUs in particular, were glaring and easy to knock down. It augured very poorly for what was to come later in the series.

Belton’s latest entry, “There’s No Sexual Revolution In Black America Just Sex,” is a great example of the tone and shortcomings of Belton’s approach to this series. She begins with an anecdote about her upbringing that serves no real purpose (unless “I was raised better than y’all” counts), links to some grim stats and then starts wildly extrapolating from there. It’s all topline punditry, with no attempts to dig deeper at all.

What that first study she links to actually says: “the average age for first sexual intercourse among adolescents is 16“; “the mean age for sexual debut among inner-city youths is 13“; and “African American adolescent girls tend to initiate sex earlier than Caucasian or Latina teens, and they are more likely to initiate sexual activity prior to age 13 than Caucasian teens.” Those numbers are unsettling. But they’re also pretty straightforward, and Belton still misquotes and misreads them.

The second study she links to is a little tougher to grapple with, but because of its alarming conclusions, it requires some real grappling and a closer look. The Times story Belton links to unhelpfully omits a link to the study itself, so it’s hard to get a handle on its methodology. What the story does do is make race the central lens through which the study’s findings: “these are especially big problems for for black women.” But my lingering suspicion is that there is a huge class element to the study’s findings, and that there’s a higher incidence of the STDs in populations with less access to health resources — you know, poorer people. Black women are also more likely to be obese, more likely to die from cancer, and infant mortality rates are higher among black children — all things that correlate with poverty and, necessarily, with access to health care.

That the black girls in the study were more likely to test positive for sexually transmitted diseases, then, is probably because black people are disproportionately poor, and not because black people are sexually backwards, as Belton clearly believes:

There is a confusing crudeness in how many blacks view sexuality. It’s depicted as bad on one hand, and you have parents afraid of engaging in talks about sex with their children as if their off-spring lived in a bubble. On the other, you have the former BET show “Uncut” that played what passed for softcore porn on cable television in long-video form. You have rapper Snoop Dogg selling commercially friendly products to youth and you have the same Snoop Dogg who once hosted a porno. We seem to have the worst of America’s love-hate relationship with sex in the black community where you can proudly see it all hang out, while another side desperately tries to tuck it back in and no one ever cracks opens a book and learns how their bodies are supposed to work in the first place.

There’s no sexual revolution in black America, just sex. Confused, fun, dangerous, illicit, guilt-filled sex. Very few people are acting from a place of maturity and confidence, not in themselves or their sexuality. We’re living in a place where it’s become acceptable to have a kid or several out of wedlock and act like it’s impossible to make it to 30 without this happening. We’re silent about the AIDS epidemic disproportionately ravaging black women. No one wants to talk about sex, but everyone seems to want to do it, desperately, without protection and in seductive ignorance of the cruel realties of their undertakings.

That’s a maddeningly simplistic and condescending statement — a parade of disparate, unrelated facts haphazardly strung together that she wraps up with some cutesy turns of phrase. She acknowledges that America has a “love-hate relationship with sex” and says that black people in particular harbor the worst elements of that sexual schizophrenia. Why is that true? Because she says it is. She notes that we’re silent about the AIDS epidemic ravaging black women while omitting the fact that it’s poorer black women without regular care who are much more likely to contract the virus. It’s not a small omission. Focusing on race allows Belton to play the solidarity angle for some well-intentioned chastising and lamentation, because the narrower, more useful construction — the one that also considers class — doesn’t allow the same kind of easy “I’m-speaking-as-an-insider” moralizing.

“Focusing on race allows Belton to play the solidarity angle for some well-intentioned chastising and lamentation, because the narrower, more useful construction — the one that also considers class — doesn’t allow the same kind of easy “I’m-speaking-as-an-insider” moralizing.”

Interesting. I haven’t read the series but will do so in a bit. But I do find it interesting that racism is deemed unacceptable across the board but classim is often ignored, even encouraged at times. I don’t understand that.

http://bitchphd.blogspot.com bitchphd

Good good good piece.

I infer that none of the studies referenced control for income, at least not in terms of the race-based statistics?

http://socialsciencelite.blogspot.com Jeremy

At least in respect to the first study, her “analysis” seems to be based on an egregious misinterpretation of the statistical modeling. She seems to infer that we are just simply comparing rates of STDs and average age of first sexual experience between the races, when the wording looks more like a logistic regression. Maybe young_ can help me out if he’s around, but a logistic would compare “the probability of Black sexual activity before the age of 13 relative to White sexual activity before the age of 13.” This is quite quite quite different than a comparison of mean ages for sexual activity.

EDIT: I quickly perused the study and it looks like the did hierarchical regressions. I’m no stats geek, but needless to say, the interpretation of these studies are much different than she implies, as G.D. notes. Statisticians would have a field day with her poor interpretation of the data.

ladyfresh

Dude…the name of her blog is ‘The Black Snob’

so this…

“That’s a maddeningly simplistic and condescending statement”

shouldn’t be surprising.

She makes alot of those. Why the targeting?

http://www.fairlyprejudiced.blogspot.com Kjen

I’ve been reading about AIDS lately and how different groups have been affected by it.

Now about those pesky STIs in the Black community. Class and poverty can only explain so much about why STIs, AIDS in particular, is so high in Black communities is also due to sexual behaviors (lack of protection , concurrent partners, smaller social circles). Once STI levels reach a certain point, the very fact that you are having sex means that you are at an increased risk of running into STIs and thus have a better chance of contracting it.

At this point, after seeing the pervasiveness of poverty, I would think that tackling changing people’s sexual behaviors would be the easiest route to reduce STIs from spreading further.

dilettante

Well the good thing is G.D you waded in and offered counterpoints. Danielle has to be congratulatedIMV for allowing you the space to do so. Often when blog’s are heavily skewed to a ‘dumbed down’ perspective any semblance of raising the bar is not tolerated by the blogger or other commenter’s. The original post @the Snob did ignore class distinctions,but the post was started as a personal testimony about her own black/ working class
roots and the mores a child from a two parent family was raised with. Since she cited sources and studies leaving the class angle out was a problem.

I often wonder how much pressure you, I, Danielle and other black Americans feel to subtly or overtly acknowledge the preponderance of poverty amongst our population. If you don’t directly address it (in a white, or non white) setting- someone is SURE to feel it incumbent on themselves to “keep you honest” and remind you. This quest for accuracy can be range from crude to creatively sophisticated.

This happens online, and in personal interactions when you are dealing with people who don’t know your entire life story, yet find themselves in the same professional/academic/social settings as you- but at some point your exceptionalism ,or not, from “the rule” has to be accounted for.

http://www.myspace.com/quixotic4 G.D.

i couldn’t find the study in the Times piece; everyone else in the blogosphere who mentioned the study just linked to the NYT article.

*cacophony of applause following (the square-jawed, stone-faced) shani’s initial slow clap as the credits start to roll*

the piece was butter, but a little salty towards the Snob. where is the leniency?

ladyfresh

a “little” salty?

http://www.myspace.com/quixotic4 G.D.

i’m not gonna keep “going after” her; i don’t have any beef with her. she seems like a nice person. I don’t even think she’s putting these posts up maliciously. it seems like she’s just being sort of lazy about the way she’s thinking about these things.

i hope it’s clear that i’m going after her ideas (and the way they’re expressed) and not her.

http://www.myspace.com/quixotic4 G.D.

eh, I don’t buy the idea that her self-identification means that her posting should be above comment. (Would you say the same about our critiquing of an an avowed conservative like Ross Douthat?)

“She begins with an anecdote about her upbringing that serves no real purpose (unless “I was raised better than y’all” counts), links to some grim stats and then starts wildly extrapolating from there. It’s all topline punditry, with no attempts to dig deeper at all.

She even phones in the topline stuff.”

You crush her ideas, but you bury her a lil’ in there as well. I know you don’t got beef, and you are being good to post this up on your blog rather than having a deathmatch with her, but to me the line between attacking her ideas and her is blurred in this piece.

ladyfresh

basically i didn’t think she was ‘above’ reproach

i didn’t think she was ‘above’ anything

http://socialsciencelite.blogspot.com Jeremy

her ideas are so reckless, it’s almost hard to avoid ad hominems. Look, i’m just going to say it: her work reads like she just wants to be linked to by posting provocative, half-thought-out, catchy little pieces that are guaranteed to spark a reaction. I think it’s important to call her out when her work is this sloppy, but also to try and not make it a habit to avoid giving her unnecessary shine.

http://www.myspace.com/quixotic4 G.D.

Winslow, you should peep the posts in this series. A lot of of them start off this way: “I wasn’t raised that way and i’m so much smarter/more open-minded/successful because of it.”

It is topline stuff. She skims some information and makes a bunch of points based on that skimming.

http://www.myspace.com/quixotic4 G.D.

At this point, after seeing the pervasiveness of poverty, I would think that tackling changing people’s sexual behaviors would be the easiest route to reduce STIs from spreading further.

Changing sexual behaviors? I’m not following.

http://www.fairlyprejudiced.blogspot.com Kjen

O, I meant that health professionals/individuals themselves should teach/learn how to conduct their sex lives differently. Literally changing how people have sex.

http://www.myspace.com/quixotic4 G.D.

gotcha. how would they go about doing that, tho?

Robyn

And what does “changing sexual behaviors” mean? I’m not sure I follow. Coincidentally, there’s a piece in today’s Science Times that touches on this as well. It examines a study of the disparities in outcomes between Blacks and Caucasians who have throat and head cancers (some of which is HPV-derived, and is linked to oral sex). The conclusion is that the gap in survival rates may be traced back to cultural and social differences including “different sexual practices.” I’ll need someone to explain the difference in these practices to me b/c I’ve no clue what they’re talking about. Are we the only ones giving head?